An electric vehicle, emitting no exhaust gas and environment-friendly, has the problem of taking a relatively long time to charge. In order to shorten the charge time, the electric vehicle has to be given a great amount of electric power in a short time, thereby requiring power equipment having a larger power capacity in a location where only a low-voltage power line is laid. Hence, an electric vehicle is generally given a boosting charge by rectifying commercial AC power, storing DC power in a storage battery and utilizing the stored DC power (refer to Patent Documents 1 and 2). Patent Document 1 offers a charging apparatus including only one charger, the charger being switched using a change-over switch and thereby charging both a storage battery for equipment and a storage battery for an electric vehicle. Patent Document 2 offers a charging apparatus including a daytime storage battery storing electric power in the daytime and a nighttime storage battery storing electric power in the nighttime, in which residual electric power in the nighttime storage battery can be supplied via a charger to a storage battery for an electric vehicle during the daytime.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 5-20768
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Publication No. 3334118